{"id":632,"date":"2013-12-06T17:45:34","date_gmt":"2013-12-07T01:45:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/formidableengineeringconsultants.com\/?p=632"},"modified":"2026-05-03T21:18:48","modified_gmt":"2026-05-04T05:18:48","slug":"the-next-big-thing-in-e-commerce-is-you","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/formidableengineeringconsultants.com\/?p=632","title":{"rendered":"The Next Big Thing in E-Commerce is You"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"next-big-thing1\"<\/a>There is a great imbalance in the vast internet marketplace that has yet to be addressed and is quite ripe for the picking. In fact, this imbalance is probably at the root of the astronomical stock market valuations of existing and new companies like Google<\/a>, facebook<\/a>, Twitter<\/a> and their ilk.<\/p>\n

It turns out that your data is valuable.\u00a0 Very valuable.\u00a0\u00a0And it also turns out that you are basically giving it away.\u00a0 You are giving it away – not quite for free but pretty close.\u00a0 What you are getting in return is\u00a0personalization. You get advertisements targeted at you providing you with products you don’t need but are likely to find quite iresistable.\u00a0 You get recommendations for other sites that\u00a0ensure that you\u00a0need never venture outside the bounds of your existing likes and dislikes. You get matched up with companies that provide services that you might or might not need but definitely will think are valuable.<\/p>\n

Ultimately,\u00a0you are giving up your data so businesses can more efficiently extract more money from you.<\/p>\n

If you are going to get exploited in this manner, it’s time to make that exploitation a two way street. Newspapers, for instance,\u00a0are rapidly\u00a0arriving at the conclusion\u00a0that there is actual monetary value in the information that they provide.\u00a0 They are seeing that the provision of vetted, verified, thougful and well-written information is intrinsicly worth more than nothing.\u00a0 They have decided that simply giving this valuable commodity away for free<\/a>\u00a0is giving up the keys to the kingdom.\u00a0 The Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, The Economist\u00a0and others are seeing that people are willing to pay and do actually subscribe.<\/p>\n

There is a lesson in this for you – as a person.\u00a0There is value in\u00a0your data.\u00a0 Your mobile movements, your surf trail, your shopping preferences\u00a0 It \u00a0should not be the case that you implicitly surrender this information for better personalization or even a $5 Starbucks gift card.\u00a0 This constant flow of data from you, your actions, movements and keystrokes ought to result in a constant flow of money to you.\u00a0 When you think about it, why isn’t the ultimate personal data collection engine, Google Glass, given away for free? Because people don’t realize that personal data collection is its primary function. \u00a0Clearly, the time has come for the realization of a personal paywall<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The idea is simple, if an entity wants your information they pay you for it.\u00a0 Directly.\u00a0 They don’t go to Google or facebook and buy it – they open up an account with you and pay you directly.\u00a0 At a rate that you set.\u00a0 Then that business can decide if you are worth what you think you are or not.\u00a0 You can adjust your fee up or down anytime and you can be dropped or picked up by followers. You could provide discount tokens or free passes for friends.\u00a0 You could charge per click, hour, day, month or year.\u00a0 You might charge more for your mobile movements and less for your internet browsing trail.\u00a0 The data you share comes with an audit trail that ensures that if the information is passed on to others without your consent you will be able to take action – maybe even delete it – wherever it is.\u00a0 Maybe your data lives for only a few days or months or years – like a contract or a note – and then disappears.<\/p>\n

Of course, you will have to do the due diligence to ensure you are selling your information to a legitimate organization and not a Nigerian prince<\/a>.\u00a0 This, in turn, may result in the creation of a new class of service providers who vet these information buyers.<\/p>\n

This data reselling capability would also provide additional income to individuals.\u00a0 It would not a living wage to compensate for having lost a job but it would be some compensation for participating in facebook or LinkedIn or a sort of kickback for buying something at Amazon and then allowing them to target you as a consumer more effectively. It would effectively reward you for contributing the information that drives the profits of these organizations and recognize the value that you add to the system.<\/p>\n

The implementation is challenging and would require encapsulating data in packets over which you exert some control.\u00a0 An architectural model similar to bitcoin <\/a>with a central table indicating where every bit of your data is at any time would be valuable and necessary. Use of the personal paywall would likely require that you include an application on your phone or use a customized browser that releases your information only to your paid-up clients.\u00a0In addition,\u00a0some sort of easy, frictionless\u00a0mechanism through which companies or organizations could automatically decide to buy your information and perhaps negotiate (again automatically) with your paywall for a rate that suits both of you would make use of the personal paywall invisible and easy. Again this technology would have to screen out fraudulent entities<\/a> and not even bother negotiating with them.<\/p>\n

There is much more to this approach to consider and many more challenges to overcome.\u00a0 I think, though, that this is an idea that could change the internet landscape and make it more equitable and ensure the true value of the internet is realized and shared by all its participants and users.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There is a great imbalance in the vast internet marketplace that has yet to be addressed and is quite ripe for the picking. In fact, this imbalance is probably at the root of the astronomical stock market valuations of existing and new companies like Google, facebook, Twitter and their ilk. It turns out that your […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[47,48,73,68,59,21,49,56,15,45,17],"tags":[61,74,46,39,60,75,6,76,38,58,57,89,22],"class_list":["post-632","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-data","category-databases","category-disruptive-technology","category-innovation","category-mobile","category-mobile-applications","category-privacy","category-security","category-software","category-start-ups","category-web-x1-0","tag-advertising","tag-big-data","tag-ideas","tag-media","tag-mobility","tag-monetization","tag-new","tag-paywall","tag-revolutionary","tag-risk","tag-security-2","tag-software","tag-world-wide-web"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/formidableengineeringconsultants.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/632","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/formidableengineeringconsultants.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/formidableengineeringconsultants.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/formidableengineeringconsultants.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/formidableengineeringconsultants.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=632"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/formidableengineeringconsultants.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/632\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":642,"href":"https:\/\/formidableengineeringconsultants.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/632\/revisions\/642"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/formidableengineeringconsultants.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=632"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/formidableengineeringconsultants.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=632"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/formidableengineeringconsultants.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=632"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}